Traditional psychotherapy really can be harmful. People learn to reflect on the history of their lives but psychoanalytic psychotherapy usually screws them right back into the negative aspects of their past. Recently I treated a lovely, talented client who had been in traditional therapy for a long time, with a procession of different therapists. She thought she was not able to connect with an open heart with her partner and children because she had learned as a child to protect her vulnerable heart. I simply created a safe space for her and lead her into a soul journey type of visualisation in which I simply asked her to imagine her heart opening slowly and to its full extent, and to tell me how it felt. She said it felt amazing. I was then able to challenge her erroneous idea that she couldn't open her heart, and offered her the idea that this was in her control, she was not a victim of some supposed psychopathology, as she had just decided to do it. She held the keys to happiness and love in her own hand.
Later, her partner phoned to thank me for "a miracle", as my client was transformed, happy, relaxed and loving. It was no miracle, just righting a therapeutic wrong as far as I was concerned.
